Arakhin 12b (יב:) — the Talmud in English

The second one arose and conquered Jehoiakim,

and consequently, the eighth year of his reign was the seventh year from the conquest.

We learned in a beraita: Rabbi Yosei says: When the Temple was destroyed the first time, etc., it was on the day after the Sabbatical year, etc.

And likewise the second time.

And we raise an objection:

And the second time,

the year in which the destruction occurred, which was to fall

on the day after the Sabbatical year—is it possible to find this? After all, how long did the Second Temple stand? Four hundred and twenty

years.

And the year in which it was built was the first year of a Jubilee, since the Jubilees were not observed during the time of the destruction.

Four hundred

of those 420 years amount

to eight Jubilees, and

another

fourteen

years amount

to two Sabbatical cycles.

And still,

six remain

in the reckoning of its years. It follows that the year in which the 420 years ended

was the sixth year of a Sabbatical cycle,

and it was destroyed in the 421st year, which was the Sabbatical year. How, then, is it written that it was on the day after the Sabbatical year?

And we resolve this:

This

is the statement of Rabbi Yosei;

whose

is it? It is Rabbi Yehuda, who says: The fiftieth year counts both here and there,

and is counted both as the Jubilee year that has ended and as the first year of the following Jubilee. Consequently, each Jubilee contains only forty-nine years.

Eight

years, which were added

from the eight Jubilees

because one year is deducted from each Jubilee according to Rabbi Yehuda, will be added

to these six

that exceed the Jubilees and Sabbatical cycles within the 420 years, which were counted above even according to the Rabbis, who disagree with Rabbi Yehuda.

There are fourteen

excess years, which amount to two complete Sabbatical cycles.

It follows

that the 420 years ended during the Sabbatical year itself. And in the 421st year,

which was on the day after the Sabbatical year,

it

was destroyed.

And we refute this:

If

Rabbi Yosei holds

in accordance with Rabbi Yehuda,

the opening clause of the beraita is difficult, as it says

that the first time

the Temple was destroyed on the day after the Sabbatical year,

but this cannot be found

according to Rabbi Yehuda.

As it was taught: Israel counted seventeen Jubilees from when they entered the Land until they departed

from it at the time of the first destruction. There were 850 years from the time they entered until the destruction: the First Temple was built 480 years after the Exodus from Egypt, as is explained in Kings. When the forty years that they spent in the wilderness are deducted, 440 years remain. Together with the 410 years of the Temple, these total 850 years.

However,

you cannot say that they counted from the time they entered

the Land itself,

they counted

the years of the Jubilee,

for if you say so, it follows that the Temple was destroyed at the beginning of a Jubilee

[that is, in the Jubilee year]. For the 850 years amount exactly to seventeen Jubilees,

and

if so,

you cannot find

a way to reconcile this with what is written in Ezekiel,

“In the fourteenth year after the city was struck,”

and it was established above that that prophecy occurred in the Jubilee year. It follows that the destruction was fourteen years before the Jubilee.

Rather, subtract from them seven

years

during which they conquered

the Land,

and seven

years

during which they apportioned

it, for they began counting the Jubilees only afterward .

And

then

you find

that the Jubilee year was

“in the fourteenth year after the city was struck,”

for since only 836 years were included in the count, it follows that the destruction occurred in the thirty-sixth year of the seventeenth Jubilee.

And we conclude the refutation:

And if it is according to Rabbi Yehuda,

who holds that each Jubilee is forty-nine years,

bring seventeen

years that were added

from seventeen Jubilees

[for according to him one year is deducted from the fifty years of each Jubilee],

and cast them

onto the Jubilees that were counted within the 850 years; seventeen years remain in excess of the Jubilee. Let us subtract fourteen years for the seven years of conquering and the seven years of apportioning, leaving three excess years. It follows

that the destruction was

in the

third year of the cycle,

the first cycle of the eighteenth Jubilee. How, then, is it written that it was on the day after the Sabbatical year?

And we resolve this:

These two

—the tribes of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh—whom Sennacherib exiled

until Jeremiah came and restored them, Rabbi Yehuda did not count them

and he halted the count during that period, since the Jubilee applies only when all its inhabitants are

in the Land. Only when Jeremiah restored them did they begin counting anew. From then until the destruction there were thirty-six years. It follows that the year of the destruction was on the day after the Sabbatical year [for five Sabbatical cycles amount to thirty-five years], and the calculation also shows that the Jubilee year was “in the fourteenth year after the city was struck.” [But the beraita above, “Israel counted seventeen Jubilees, etc.,” disagrees with this and holds that even during the years of the exile of Sennacherib they counted Jubilees in order to sanctify the Sabbatical years, Tosafot.]

Alternatively: Actually,

Rabbi Yosei

is in accordance with the Rabbis,

who hold that the Jubilee year is not included in the count of the following Jubilee.

And when it teaches, “And likewise the second time,”

it is not referring to the day after the Sabbatical year, but

to the rest

of the times mentioned with regard to the first destruction, namely, the Ninth of Av and the day after Shabbat.

And we demonstrate this:

This too is more reasonable,

that not all the times written with regard to the first destruction applied to the second.

For if you do not say so,

but instead say that everything that occurred during the first destruction also occurred during the second,

“the watch of Jehoiarib,”

during which the First Temple was destroyed,

was it present during the second? But it was taught: Four priestly watches

of the priesthood

came up from the exile

in the days of Ezra, from among the twenty-four watches that had served in the First Temple: the watch of

Jedaiah, Harim, Pashhur, and Immer. The prophets among them arose and divided them into twenty-four watches,

[in order to uphold the enactment of the earlier prophets that the Temple service be divided among twenty-four watches].

And in order to establish the order of their precedence, they wrote their names on twenty-four slips

and mixed them, and placed them in a lottery box.

Jedaiah came,

as he was the first of these four watches, dating back to the First Temple,

and took his portion and the portion of his colleagues

from his watch, which had been divided into six. That is, he drew the

six

slips one after another. And the order in which they arose was the order of their watches.